The Spiritist's wife

On this work the Evénement of February 19 carries the following article, signed, like the preceding one, by Zola:

“Decidedly, the novelists of short imagination in these times of incessant production are going to resort to Spiritism to find new and bizarre subjects. In my last article I spoke of the Espírita, by Théophile Gautier; today I come to announce the release, by the house Lemer, of the Wife of the Spiritist, by Ange de Kéranion. “Perhaps Spiritism will come to furnish the French genius with the marvelous necessary to every well-conditioned epic.

“The Davenports will thus have brought us one of the elements of the epic poem that French literature still awaits.

“The book of Mr. Kéraniou is somewhat verbose; one does not know whether he ridicules or speaks seriously; but it is full of curious details that make of it a work interesting to leaf through.

“Count Humbert de Luzy, an eminent Spiritist, a kind of Antichrist, who makes the tables dance, married a young woman in whom, naturally, he inspires a horrible fear.

“The young wife, as was to be expected, wants to arrange for a lover. It is here that the story becomes truly original. The Spirits take on the role of guard of honor of the husband and, on two occasions, in desperate circumstances, save that honor with the aid of apparitions and earthquakes. “If I were married, I would become a Spiritist.”

Decidedly the Spiritist idea makes its entrance into the press by way of the novel. There it enters adorned: the naked and crude truth would shock those gentlemen. We know this new work only by the article above and, thus, can say nothing. We will only observe that the author of this criticism, perhaps without having seen its scope, enunciates a great and fruitful truth, that of which literature and the arts will find in Spiritism a rich mine to exploit. We said it long ago: one day there will be Spiritist art, as there was pagan art and Christian art. Yes, the poet, the man of letters, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect himself will gather in handfuls, from this new source, themes of sublime inspiration when they have explored elsewhere, and not at the bottom of a cupboard. Théophile Gautier was the first to enter the lists by a capital work, full of poetry; without doubt he will have imitators. “Perhaps Spiritism will come to furnish the elements of the epic poem that French literature still awaits.” It would already be a result not so feeble to disdain. (See Spiritist Review of December 1860:

Spiritist art, pagan art, and Christian art.)